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Creating Great Customer Service

We’ve all had a terrible customer service experience, and we often dread having to contact that “voice” on the other end of the line when we have a problem. This attitude may soon change, thanks to research done by Indianapolis-based Interactive Intelligence.

The main purpose of the company’s annual survey was to find out what consumers want in a great customer service experience. Some of the findings include:

A knowledgeable representative and a timely response are the most valuable components of a great service experience

Hotels, online retailers and banks provide the best customer service experiences

Live agent remains the preferred interaction type, followed by email. There is a significant drop to web chat, etc.

Not being able to understand the agent is rated as the most frustrating part of an interaction

Customers are more willing to use social media to praise a good service experience versus complaining about a poor experience

“As a provider of business communications software for contact centers and enterprises, we wanted to help our customers maximize the value of our solutions by giving them insight into what makes a great service experience for their customers. The results of the survey accomplished this by revealing a number of interesting findings ranging from preferences about agent behavior, to those about the technology used in a customer service interaction.”

Hopefully, these survey results will help to positively impact the way that companies handle customer service. I know that I would be happier if I knew that contacting customer service would be easy and painless every time.